Ricky Bobby's Babe

Any star athlete needs to have a trophy wife. When Leslie Bibb won the role of Ricky Bobby’s wife in Talladega Nights, she set out to create the ultimate NASCAR babe. Bibb needed only to look around her for inspiration.

Leslie Bibb Talks Ricky Bobby

“Seeing this person in Neiman Marcus, this woman, she was definitely new money,” Bibb said. “Probably from Texas. And she was like jammed into a Juicy Velour sweat pants. She’s the girl that wears the matching and it was like hot pink. Carley would love it, but she was in her ‘50s, ‘60s but like boobs and everything, just jammed into it. And she had a pearl necklace, but it wasn’t like Jackie O pearls and it wasn’t like a sweet like ‘I’m From Connecticut’ pearls. It’s a very specific size. And she had like a gold chain. I was like, ‘Of course she has a cross on because she’s close to God.’ And it became like I knew her. I was like, ‘That’s who it is. She’s a lady.’ She’s a girl that came into money and it happens because you don’t grow up with money, you look around at people with money and you go, ‘That’s what I want to be.’ But then when you get it, it’s sort of your twist on it and usually you don’t have the best taste.”

With her fabulous costume in place, Bibb looked to celebrities for the relationship dynamic. “I was saying to Will, ‘Don’t you think that Carley and Ricky are sort of like Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston?’ he’s like, ‘What do you mean?’ They’re slightly strange people and they’re inappropriate and they talk about sex all the time and they make out in front of their kids and their kids are like, ‘Stop!’ And that was already a thing that was in there where Ricky and Carley make out. And she flashes people all the time. She does it in front of her kids. They’re like Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown but they love each other. That was the weird thing I loved from that show. I saw one of the episodes where Bobby Brown talks about how he pulled poop out of Whitney Houston’s tuchus. And that’s gross and disgusting but they talked about it and I said, ‘That takes love.’”

Of course, everything is exaggerated in a Will Ferrell movie, but the NASCAR fans couldn’t help but prove Bibb a little right. “Will and I are doing a scene and all of a sudden there’s a girl and she has like little jean shorts on, long blonde hair and she has a veil, little flowers but that was it. Everything like jean shorts and a tube top. And she’s like, ‘Will! Will!’ He goes, ‘What are you doing?’ She’s like, ‘I just got married!’ and I was like, ‘Oh my God, you can get married at Talladega.’ She got married in the race car or the history of the race car museum or there might be a chapel there. And her husband was behind her taking photos of her and she’s like, ‘I love you Will Ferrell.’ He goes, ‘What about your husband?’ ‘He knows.’ It was so sweet. They’re really good folks. Like they’re crazy and they have a good time but they are devoted.”

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby will be released to theatres this Friday, August 4th.